Supernatural slashers and Scientology: the “totally serendipitous” story of John Travolta’s first movie role
It didn’t take John Travolta very long to become a movie star, but because his second, third, and fourth feature film roles were so integral to his rapid ascent, his very first big screen outing tends to become lost in the shuffle.
Brian De Palma’s Carrie ushered in Hollywood’s age of Stephen King adaptations with spectacular aplomb before his very first time taking top billing in a movie earned him an Academy Award nomination, just one of many accolades accrued by the transformative Saturday Night Fever.
Gaining serious momentum from a classic horror and one of the highest-grossing R-rated releases in history that sent disco stratospheric and spawned one of the bestselling soundtracks ever, Travolta’s next port of call was Grease, which became the top-earning musical ever made, a cultural phenomenon, and a multi-generational favourite that continues winning new fans almost half a century later.
Just like that, he was a made man, which resulted in The Devil’s Rain being shunted to the background. The terrible supernatural terror premiered a month before Travolta’s breakthrough gig in the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter first aired in September 1975, and it was nothing to write home about.
A run-of-the-mill tale that finds a vengeful father seeking retribution against a demonic cult for the murder of his family, Travolta only ended up being cast when he missed out on the opportunity to work with Hal Ashby and Jack Nicholson in a drama that earned three Oscar nominations and competed for the Palme d’Or.
“Lynn Stalmaster was the casting director who tried to put me in The Last Detail,” he explained to Roger Ebert. “It was between me and Randy Quaid for the role of Meadows. I had screen-tested twice and they loved me for the role, but they felt Randy was closer to the actual character. Lynn didn’t want me to leave Hollywood.”
Travolta was on his way to Broadway to lick his wounds, at least until Stalmaster offered him an $800 per week job that would keep him gainfully employed for five weeks. Before he began his yearslong commitments to Welcome Back, Cotter, the fresh-faced actor, pitched up on the set of The Devil’s Rain, where he was mesmerised being in the company of so many stars he’d grown up watching.
The ensemble featured William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine, Ida Lupino “from the noir films” he loved, and Tom Skerritt. However, one of them ended up making a much more transformative impact on Travolta’s existence, after Joanie Prather introduced him to Scientology during production. “My life changed after that,” he admitted. “It was totally serendipitous”.
He may have only had one line before being killed off, comparing himself to “more of a makeup dummy than I was hired to do a role.” Still, he left with his first big screen credit under his belt, the experience of working with respected veterans he deeply admired, and a newfound interest in what would soon become the belief system he’s adhered to ever since.
